


The Shiniest Diamond of All

by demigoddesses



Category: Love Live! School Idol Festival (Video Game), Love Live! School Idol Project, Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Dance, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Mutual Pining, Romantic Comedy, Slow Burn, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-28 21:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11426538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demigoddesses/pseuds/demigoddesses
Summary: “Sometimes Dia wonders what she did to piss off the universe like this. By all accounts, she does not deserve things like this to happen. Not that anyone cares. Especially not the drunk blonde currently hitting on her. How did this even happen?”__In which Dia is stubborn and gay, and Mari is a bit of a player and gay, and the two of them dance around each other a lot. DiaMari college AU. No Aqours, but Dia is still a dorky μ’s fangirl.





	1. Stumble! Zero to One

**Author's Note:**

> I know I should be working on my PMMM multichap but this was honestly so much fun to write. And it just kept getting longer and longer. So without further ado, the fic.

Sometimes Dia wonders what she did to piss off the universe like this.

Dia considers herself a good person. Sure, she isn't perfect, but who is? She doesn't cheat on tests. She donates to charities. She does nice things for her friends, and she takes damn good care of her younger sister. By all accounts, she does not deserve things like this to happen. Not that anyone cares. Especially not the drunk blonde currently hitting on her. How did this even happen?

Coming to the party was a mistake, but she hadn't had a choice. The party’s purpose was to kickoff and celebrate the beginning of another successful season for Sunglow. And Dia was the leader of Sunglow dance troupe - well, she couldn't just ditch.

Still, she should have left as soon as she'd finished up their performance, made her speech, and cut the cake. What had started out as a respectable evening gathering had quickly devolved into a rowdy party of drunk, horny, grinding college kids after she'd cut the cake. Everyone knows the longer a party goes on the less appropriate it gets. Parties are never really her scene, and now, as she avoids a couple noisily making out and groping each other in a very non PG way, she needs to leave.

She's just a couple steps away from freedom when she literally crashes into someone.

“Excuse me,” she says stiffly, stepping back. The person she's bumped into is a rather busty blonde with red lipstick smeared all over her face. Either she's very drunk, or she's been making out a lot. Probably both.

“Oh, I'm sorry!” says the girl in English with a rather obnoxious accent. That's when Dia recognizes her. Oh my God. Out of all the people she had to bump into, why Mari Ohara?

Mari’s eyes flare with recognition as well. “Well if it isn't the _star_ of the night! Dia Kurosawa, am I right? You were amazing on stage.” She eyes Dia up and down in a manner that's very obviously checking her out and licks her lips.

Dia fights the urge to blush. She regrets wearing a tight silver tank top and a tiny white skirt. She regrets coming to this party in the first place. “Thanks, but I have to go -”

“Going so soon? Can't you spare a dance?” Mari asks. She suddenly leans forward, the look in her eyes so intense that Dia can't look away. She stumbles back, bumping into the door.

“I - uh - um.” She's kind of at a loss for words. What did she want to say?

“Don't want to talk? That's okay. There's other things we can do.” Mari leans in even closer and -

“Stop! I gotta go!” Dia finally blurts out. Her heart is hammering in her ears. Mari steps away, and Dia’s not sure if she's disappointed or relieved.

“I'm sorry,” Mari says again, sounding considerably more earnest this time. She rummages around in her purse. “I shouldn't have made you uncomfortable.”

Dia coughs. “It's fine. I, uh, really have to go, though.”

“It was actually nice meeting you. You were _shining_ on stage! Here. I'm Mari Ohara.” She presses a piece of paper into Dia’s hand and winks. And just like that, she's gone.

/

The next day, Dia stares at the card that Mari gave her last night. It's a business card for Ohara Resorts, a massively successful hotel chain, with Mari’s name, phone number, and job description. Apparently Mari is an intern of some sort, although Dia doubts the position even means anything considering Mari is the CEO’s daughter.

Mari Ohara is precisely the type of girl that Dia hates. Wealthy, reckless, self-centered, and overtly flirtatious. Of course, Dia had never had a conversation with her before last night… but that's irrelevant! Dia knows exactly the type of girl that Mari is, and she hates her.

Beyond that, Dia has something _personal_ against her. Still, she can't deny that Mari’s attractive. And last night, she’d actually been pretty sweet. But no! A pretty face and basic human decency is not going to sway Dia over just like that.

Dia reaches for her cell phone and takes a deep breath.

The girl on the other side of the line takes a few minutes to pick up. Dia’s pacing across her dorm and rehearsing what she needs to say the entire time.

A familiar female voice finally responds. “Hello?”

“Kanan!” Dia exclaims, releasing a breath she didn't know she was holding. “Kanan, I have _so_ much to tell you. You'll never believe who I ran into last night!”

“Spill,” her best friend urges.

“Mari Ohara!” Dia exclaims.

“Oh cool,” says Kanan nonchalantly. “Small world.”

“That's all you have to say?”

“Yeah. Anything else?”

Dia analyzes Kanan’s tone for any suppressed tension. Kanan doesn't always express her feelings, and it's hard to tell over the phone, but Dia’s gotten pretty good at deciphering her friend’s voice. They've been best friends since elementary school, after all. Right now Kanan sounds pretty damn genuine. She's genuinely all calm and casual about this. But how can that be?

“Mari Ohara, Kanan,” Dia presses. “Your ex-girlfriend? The girl who stomped all over your heart and broke it into smithereens?”

Kanan laughs. “Dia, that was what - like five years ago? We barely in high school back then. I'm way over her. Who cares what she's up to?”

“You cried for a month over her! You listened to nothing but “Natsu, Owaranai de” on repeat for the entire month! You ate so much ice cream that you lost your diving figure!” Dia splutters indignantly.

“I did not! I was as trim and fit as always. And you’re the one who recommended “Natsu, Owaranai de” to me.”

“Okay fine, that’s true. But you did eat a lot of ice cream.”

“I will admit to that, yes. But the point is, that was a long time ago. I already forgave her. Plus I'm in a happy relationship now,” Kanan says.

That's true. Kanan and her girlfriend are so happy it's almost disgusting. “Well, just because you've forgiven her doesn't mean that I have.” Dia will never forget the first time she saw Kanan cry - and it was all because of Mari. “I swore back then that I would destroy her, and I'm not backing out now!”

“Dia, if this is your roundabout way of asking for my blessing for you to date her or something -”

“What?!” Dia shrieks. Her face turns red against her will. “No, I hate her!”

“Uh huh. Well you have my blessing. I have to get to work. Bye.” _Click._

That little - that sneaky little - Dia stares at her phone furiously. She debates calling Kanan back, but she really should let Kanan get to work. Kanan takes her job at her family's seaside shop very seriously. Dia really should get a move on with her day too. She has a busy day ahead of her, and aforementioned busy day does definitely not include Mari Ohara!

/

Today is a big day for Mari, so she spends a little extra time on herself. She has a dance audition today. She _could_ show up in a t-shirt and sweatpants with no makeup and her hair in a messy bun. She knows she would still look fantastic, and the results will be based on her dancing anyway. But she wants to do this for herself. So she spends extra time braiding her hair and perfecting her eyeliner. She puts on a purple crop top and high waisted black shorts: casual, comfortable, and still cute.

“Let’s _dancing_!” she declares, grinning at her own reflection. She’s got this. By the end of today she’ll be the newest member of Sunglow. Vaguely she wonders if she’ll run into Dia Kurosawa today. She never did call her. She must not have been interested. But Mari’s not particularly disappointed about that. There’s plenty of fish in the sea - or, to say it more plainly, there’s a whole lot of pretty girls out there.

/

Here’s the thing: Mari had forgotten exactly how pretty Dia was. Long dark hair with blunt bangs like a traditional Japanese princess. Big green eyes she could drown in. And a cute little mole under her lip. On top of that, she was wearing a perfectly tailored lavender suit. Mari kind of had a thing for girls in suits. Well, she did have a thing for girls in dresses too. She had a thing for girls in general.

She's reminded of that night a week ago when she'd seen Dia dancing on the stage. She'd come to the performance not only for a good night of watching pretty girls dance but to see if Sunglow, the university’s resident all girls dance group, was worth her time. Mari wanted to join a dance group in at her new college, as she'd been dancing since high school, but she only wanted to join the best. She’d seen videos of Sunglow online, and they’d seemed pretty good, but she knew it was different sitting through a performance in person. And Sunglow hadn't disappointed. In fact, they hadn’t just been pretty good; they had been shiny! Less than a minute into their performance, she'd made her decision. She’d signed up for an audition shortly after.

“Miss Ohara,” Dia says from behind the evaluator’s table. She taps her pen on her clipboard. She’s one of two judges. The other judge is a blonde girl with kind eyes that Mari recognizes as another member of the dance troupe.

“That’s me! Hello!” she says, all smiles and charisma. Dia doesn’t crack her stern expression even once. Well, someone’s a bit of a hardass. But that doesn’t deter Mari at all. If anything, that just makes her more pumped. She makes it a personal goal to crack Dia’s veneer.

When the music starts - a bouncy pop tune; she would have preferred metal or something, but it’ll suffice - she gives it everything she has. The song is about joy and chasing after your dreams, and come on, how is the music not infectious? She doesn’t even have to force herself to smile. Like dancing, her smile just comes naturally. She makes eye contact with her audience, and the other girl is smiling, but Dia’s expression still hasn’t changed.

/

Honestly, what the fuck did she do to piss off the universe like this? A week after Dia had decided she wanted nothing to do with Mari Ohara, thank you very much, Mari sashayed right back into her life. The worst part of it all is that Mari is good enough that Dia can’t justify rejecting her. No, Sunglow needs a dancer like her, and what the group needs come first. It comes before her (maybe a little petty) personal vendetta against Mari.

There are little technicalities she could take points off for. She steps too fast here, her arm movements could be sharper there, the swing of her hips is maybe a bit too suggestive for an innocent song like this. But her smile is bright and inviting, and she moves across the floor with energy and confidence. Dia likes dance because it tells a story, and here Mari effortlessly steps into her role in the song - a little nervous, but ultimately ready to jump into something new with everything she has.

Dia frowns deeper. Fuck. Her. Life.  

/

Exactly a week later, Mari receives a call from Dia. The message is short, professional, and honestly a bit tense. “I’m calling to offer you a spot in the dance group Sunglow.”

“No way!” Mari exclaims, surprised even though she knew she would get in. She jumps out of her king sized bed. “That’s great news!”

“I take it that means you accept our offer.”

Dia’s brusque tone rubs Mari the wrong way. After all, they’re in the same group now! They ought to be friendly with each other. Mari twists a lock of hair around her finger and decides to have a bit of fun. “Babe, of course,” she practically purrs into the phone. “This means I’ll get to spend more time with you. I’m glad you finally did give me a call. I’ve been waiting for two weeks.” Ooh, she can picture Dia’s face turning all red. She resists the urge to giggle.

“I assumed you’d forgotten about that night. You were quite drunk,” Dia responds, as irritably cool as ever.

“I wasn’t that drunk, babe.”

“Please stop calling me babe,” Dia interrupts. Her cool tone has broken slightly; she sounds irritated.

Mari laughs. “Oh, come on. I thought we were friends.”

“We are _not_ friends. I hardly even know you.” Definitely irritated.

“Maybe we should get to know each other then,” Mari says, lowering her voice so that the implications won’t be lost.

“I’ll see you at practice this Monday.” And with that, Dia abruptly hangs up.

Jeez, she may be hot, but she’s no fun at all. Oh well. That just makes it more fun to rile her up. She’ll have to be careful not to go too far though.

/

Dia usually looks forward to the first practice of the year, but today she’s dreading it. She’s just nervous about all their new recruits. They have two incoming freshmen and one incoming junior (Mari, aka the pain in her ass, being the junior). It’ll be a bit of a learning curve to incorporate the three of them. Dancing in a group is different than dancing solo. An amazing soloist can totally ruin a group performance if the group doesn’t approach it correctly. And she’s nervous about leading a practice on her own for the first time. She’s not used to being Sunglow’s leader. It was a surprise when the girls had elected her last year; she’d assumed that Minami would become the leader out of seniority. But the gentle blonde had enthusiastically congratulated her on her position.

Practice starts in fifteen minutes at five PM. Dia looks at the huge poster of Eli Ayase, her favorite idol, hanging on her bedroom wall to calm her nerves. Eli’s captivating blue eyes and serene smile always make her feel better. It’s time to head out.

Or so she thinks when her phone rings. She balks at the sight of who’s calling. Would it be unprofessional to ignore it? Yes, yes, it would be. She sighs, slowly counts to three, and then picks up the phone.

“Hello, Mari.”

“Dia!” the girl at the other end of the phone exclaims, as cheerful and charming as ever. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m a bit of a pickle, and I’d like to request a favor.”

A favor? That sounds incredibly suspicious. Dia almost hangs up on the spot, but for some reason, she doesn’t. “What is it?”

“See, I live kind of far from the studio, but I let a friend of mine borrow my car, so I need a ride,” Mari explains.

Dia raises her eyebrows. “Are you suggesting that _I_ give you this ride? Why don’t you take the subway or something?”

“Eh? I just moved here! The subway system is so confusing!”

Damn it. How did Mari know her weak spot? Dia can’t help but to sympathize. She got lost in the Tokyo subway system when she was younger, and she almost had a public breakdown.

“Why don’t you ask someone else for a ride?” she asks, trying one last time to deflect.

“I told you, I’ve only been in Japan for a few weeks. I don’t _have_ anyone else. Aside from the friend who’s borrowing my car, who obviously can’t take me to the studio. Dia, _please_.” Mari sounds like she means it.

Dia really doesn’t want to give Mari a ride, but how is she supposed to callously reject after Mari told her all that? She even said please! “I don’t trust you,” she says.

To her surprise, Mari says, “I guess I might have deserved that one. But Dia, I promise that I don’t have any ulterior motives! I just want a ride to practice.”

She sighs inwardly and gives up. “What’s your address?” And when Mari gives her an address that’s unfortunately close by, Dia curses her luck. There goes her last chance for an excuse.

/

At first Mari was excited about teasing Dia more on their ride together, but the other girl hardly talks to her. She responds to her attempts at small talk with terse one word responses. Jeez, who put a stick up her ass? (Dia’s lucky that her ass is cute, especially in those tight leggings.) Mari doesn’t know Dia that well, but she seems to be in a bad mood today, so she stops bothering her after a while.

The closer they get to Teal Studios - the local dance studio that Sunglow rents out to hol their practices - the more tense Dia seems to become. She sits a little straighter and grips the steering wheel a little tighter. That’s when Mari realizes something.

“You don’t have to be so nervous, you know,” she says.

“I’m not nervous,” Dia snaps in a manner that makes it very obvious that she is, in fact, nervous.

Mari figures there’s two ways she can go about this. She can gently reassure Dia that she has nothing to be nervous about, or she can tease her about it hoping that the other girl will reveal what’s on her mind out of sheer frustration. She goes for the latter. “Aw, is being around me making your heart flutter so much?”

Dia’s grip on the steering wheel tightens even further. “It has nothing to do with you. And it’s none of your business, either.”

Mari smirks, even though she knows Dia can’t see it because she’s the responsible type of driver who always keeps her eyes on the road. “Don’t worry babe; I assure you that it’s normal. Lots of people get this way around me.”

Dia actually takes her eyes off the road to glare at Mari. Wow. Her eyes are really green and really intense; it makes her stomach swoop a little bit despite the animosity behind it. Or maybe because of. Hm, is she turned on or frightened? Both? She’s so distracted that she almost doesn’t catch Dia’s words.

“I told you, it’s not about you! I’m just leading a practice for the first time so I have some jitters, okay?”

Bingo. She’s actually surprised that her plan worked; she didn’t expect Dia’s stoic demeanor to crack so easily. But then again, the girl is a little frazzled. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve got what it takes to be a leader. I know about these things,” Mari says, not faking the sincerity in her voice.

Dia doesn’t respond to that, but Mari _swears_ her grip on the steering wheel loosens a bit after that.

/

Dia is full of surprises. The biggest one being that she’s actually kind of… nice. She relaxes further when she actually enters the studio, especially when she seems a couple of the other girls already waiting. She greets them warmly, asks them how their summer was, and laughs at their stories. She even gives a couple members hugs. What the hell? Is this the real Dia?

As the girls arrive, Mari takes the time to introduce herself and get to know her new fellow dance members. She accepts a cookie from Minami Nagayama, a senior with a motherly aura. Mari recognizes her as the other judge at her dance audition and thanks her for deciding that her skills were worthy of the group, and Minami lets her know that the pleasure was all hers with a hug. She promises Kanata Konoe, a sleepy junior, that she’ll wake her up if she falls asleep during dance practice. Sophomores Akiru Shinomiya, Ruu Tatara, and Reine Saeki practice warm up stretches with her, giving her pointers and compliments. She bonds with freshmen Mutsuki Takamagahara and Maria over being new to the group and learns that Mutsuki likes to conduct homemade science projects in her spare time, and Maria is a foreign student from Spain.

“I’m also a foreign student, of a sorts! I was born here, but I went to high school and university in America. I came back so I could return to my roots,” Mari explains excitedly.

Practice begins, and just as she predicted, Dia is a great leader. She’s firm with the girls and maybe a bit too strict about sticking to the schedule, but it’s obvious that she loves Sunglow and cares about each of its members.

“One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four,” Dia claps out as the other girls dance to the beat. “Ruu, you’re off the beat.”

“S-sorry,” Ruu stammers.

“No need to apologize,” Dia says with a reassuring smile. “Let’s try this again. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four...”

Mari steps and jumps, breathing hard. Sweat rolls down her face, but she’s enjoying herself. She begins to twirl when Dia stops them again.

“Ruu, will you move to the front center for this portion of the song?”

“B-but I was off beat earlier,” Ruu says, shifting from foot to foot.

“You can handle it. You’re a good dancer, and you know the choreography. You’re just not confident enough. You’re looking at the girls around you too much.” Dia gives Ruu another reassuring smile, prompting the girl to head over to the spot that she suggested, but glares at Mari, as if this is somehow her fault.

So it turns out that Dia is caring and open-minded and kind. With one exception. At first Mari thinks that she’s imagining it, but when Dia rudely interrupts her suggestion of a metal song they could perform to, Mari _knows_ Dia specifically has something against her. What the hell is her deal?

/

Practice goes better than Dia anticipated, and by the end of it, she’s not sure what she was so nervous about. Still, she can’t wait to go home and take a shower. She’s mulling over the music and the choreography and the costumes when Mari bounds over.

“What?” Dia nearly barks.

Mari grins, unfazed. Her constantly upbeat attitude annoys Dia. She acts like everything in life is a joke! “You have to get me a ride home, don’t you?”

Shit. Dia had forgotten about that. “Yeah, fine,” she concedes. She’s not the type of person to go back on her promises.

/

“So why do you hate me, Dia?”

The question catches her so off guard that she almost takes her eyes off the road. She answers cautiously. “What do you mean?”

“Be honest with me, Dia,” Mari says. For once, she’s completely serious. “What did I do to piss you off?”

Dia flips on her turn signal and switches lanes. Focusing on driving helps her cool her temper and formulate what to say next. She exhales calmly. “Does the name _Kanan Matsuura_ ring a bell to you?”

“Huh? My ex-girlfriend?” Mari momentarily sounds confused, but then she exclaims, “Oh! You’re _that_ Dia.”

Dia nods. She and Mari never met in person, but she assumes that Kanan talked to her from time to time. (At least, she better have! Otherwise what kind of best friend is she?) Kanan also showed her pictures afterwards and told her the entire tragic tale between tears and tubs of ice cream. From what she understands, Mari and Kanan had a torrid summer affair while she was stuck in her family vacation home in the middle of the Japanese countryside with no wi-fi and lots of sheep.

“That’s why you hate me? But that was years ago!” Mari says incredulously.

Mari’s tone rubs her the wrong way. She sees red, and it’s not just because of the red stop light. “Kanan may have just been a cheap lay to you, but she’s my best friend!”

“Whoa, whoa, Kanan was not just a cheap lay to me, okay?” Mari quickly says. “I mean, not that I have anything against casual hookups, but she was one of the few girlfriends I was really serious about, okay? I really liked her.”

“Then why did you dump her?” Dia snaps.

“It was just one of those things where it didn’t work out. We were both fifteen, and it was our first relationship. Plus I had to study abroad in America, and we weren’t confident in our abilities to do long distance. So I decided to end it,” Mari explains.

That actually… makes sense. It sounds strikingly similar to the kind of thing Kanan would say, too. But it’s going to take more than that to convince Dia to forgive Mari. Like, Mari didn’t even apologize!

“Whatever,” she grumbles, and she doesn’t say a single thing for the rest of the drive.

/

“Ugh, I hate her!” Dia complains to Kanan later that night.

“She’s right, you know,” Kanan says. “It was one of those things where it just didn’t work out. The timing wasn’t right, and you can’t expect a relationship that begun when you were fifteen to last forever.”

Dia gasps. Did her best friend really just betray her like that? “No! Don’t tell me you’re on her side. You were heartbroken over her!” She punctuates each syllable for emphasis: “Heart! Bro! Ken!”

“I _was_ heartbroken over her. Past tense,” Kanan points out. “Come on Dia, you don’t have to be all petty and stubborn like this. Just admit that you might have been wrong about Mari, and try to get along with her. You’ll be seeing a lot of her, after all.”

“Me? Petty and stubborn?” Dia repeats innocently, but it sounds fake even to her. “Whatever. I _am_ going to destroy her, Kanan Matsuura, and you can’t stop me.”

Kanan sighs. “If you’re going to be petty, fine. You know what would be the best way to destroy her?”

“What?” Dia asks, holding her breath.

Kanan’s suggestion is simple but brilliant. “Break her heart. Like she broke mine.”

For a moment, Dia’s completely silent. Then she starts to laugh, the sound deep and ominous. “Mm heh heh.”

“Dia?” Kanan asks, sounding worried. “I was just joking, you know.”

“Kanan. That is the most ridiculous, diabolical, vengeful thing I have ever heard come out of your mouth!” Dia says. “I’m going to do it!”

“It was a joke!” Kanan protests, but Dia barely even hears her.

Her mind is whirling with potential plans. Things to wear, to say, to do. The many ways she could go about approaching this. The heartbroken look on Mari’s face when Dia finally gets her revenge, five years late. It’ll be a challenge, but Dia never, ever backs down from a challenge.

Kanan’s still trying to talk some sense into her. “Dia? Dia! Are you listening to me? I was not being serious. It was a joke.”

“I have to go do something. Goodbye, Kanan.” Dia ends the call.

Mari Ohara, you have no idea what’s coming for you.


	2. Operation: Strawberry Trapper

****Tuesday afternoon after finishing up her classes, Mari’s in the middle of reading her science textbook (she’s a theater major, but she enjoys science so she’s taking a class even though her GE requirements are filled) when her phone unexpectedly rings. Mari mindlessly picks it up when her eyes widen at the even more unexpected contact. Dia Kurosawa.

She picks up immediately, curious as to what Dia has to say. Is she going to interrogate her about Kanan again? Is she just going to brusquely deliver some more news about Sunglow? Whatever it is, Mari’s sure it’ll be interesting.

“Hello!” she says brightly, in English.

“I just wanted to apologize for my behavior,” Dia tells her, her curt tone at odds with her words. Mari almost giggles at the disparity, and then she processes the words again, and she does a double take.

“Really?” she asks.

“Yes,” Dia affirms. “You were right about Kanan. Whatever happened between you and her, it’s all in the past. I’ve spoken to her as well and come to the conclusion that it’s immature of me to cling onto my past grudges.”

Whatever Mari was expecting, it definitely wasn’t this. “Well, that’s good to hear,” she says slowly. “How is Kanan nowadays?” That was something she’d forgotten to ask the night before, what with everything else she had to think about.

“She’s doing well,” Dia responds, her voice softening a bit. “She’s going to university in Uchiura so she can stay close to her family’s shop. She still dives and recently won a competition. She and her current girlfriend are very happy.”

“That’s also good to hear,” Mari says, feeling relieved. After her conversation with Dia last night, she’d wondered if perhaps she’d unknowingly ruined Kanan’s life by breaking her heart. What if Kanan had never recovered and become a depressed shutin? Mari didn’t think she had that much power, but that would justify Dia’s fury. “Wait, you’re not Kanan’s girlfriend?” This had been the alternate justification that Mari had come up with for Dia’s reaction. She and Kanan were dating, and Dia cared for her deeply and regarded her exes with jealousy. It made sense to her. Friends frequently became lovers, and both Dia and Kanan (assuming Kanan is _at least_ as hot as she was at fifteen) were too hot to be single.

But Dia quickly shuts her down. “Definitely not. We’re best friends.”

“Oh, so you _are_ single,” Mari says flirtatiously. Oops. She hadn’t meant to flirt, but it’d just come out naturally. She’s pretty sure Dia’s gay (and her gaydar is usually right), but Mari’s not currently looking to date, and Dia doesn’t seem like the type of girl who’s looking to just hook up. Situations like that are always messy, so she’d rather not get involved.

Dia coughs awkwardly. “Anyway, as I was saying, I felt bad about how I treated you previously, so I’ll treat you out. There’s a nice cafe nearby the studio. I was thinking we could grab something light before practice. At four, maybe? If you’re not busy, I mean. Do you have your car back yet, or will you need me to drive you?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not busy, and I have my car back,” Mari reassures her.

“So, uh, that’s a yes, right? To the cafe?” Dia’s awkwardness is strangely endearing. Damn, Mari doesn’t want to get involved, but she _is_ cute.

“Of course that’s a yes, silly!” Mari says with a laugh. “Who wouldn’t say yes to a date with you?”

“This isn’t a date,” Dia says sharply.

Ooh, this is going to be so much fun.  

/

For all her bluster the night before, Dia actually has no idea how to seduce anybody. Like, at all. She’s been in two relationships her entire life: first in the senior year of high school with an equally socially awkward girl and then in the first year of college with an upbeat and cheerful senior who had actually been the reason why she’d joined Sunglow. Neither relationship had been initiated by herself, and neither relationship had lasted longer than six months.

Dia flops onto her bed, face down into the pillow. She resists the urge to scream. Who can she ask for advice? Definitely not Kanan. Her younger sister? No way, she can’t ask Ruby for romantic advice, even if Ruby is in a successful long term relationship. She’s supposed to be the one advising Ruby, even if Ruby, at nineteen, can now take care of herself and probably would give good advice. Nope, nope, that would be way too embarrassing!

She flips around on her bed so that she can gaze into the wise eyes of Eli Ayase. “Eli, what should I do?” she pleads.

Eli, being a poster, doesn’t respond.

This is hopeless.

/

Mari arrives at the cafe exactly on time, figuring that her punctuality will impress Dia. Dia, of course, is already there. She’s wearing a black sleeveless top and a short pink skirt, and when she stands up to greet her, Mari can’t help but to check out her long legs.

They order their drinks together. Dia orders a simple cappuccino, and Mari tries the featured drink, a mint chocolate frappuccino with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. Maybe she shouldn't be ordering something so sugary right before practice, but hey, you only live once.

They pick a spot in a cozy corner of the cafe, a bit isolated from everyone else. As they wait for their drinks, Dia stares out the window at the cars passing by. Mari gives the window a glance, but she doesn't find it that interesting. They sit in awkward silence for a couple of moments before Mari decides to break it.

“So, what got you interested in dance?” she asks.

Dia turns towards her, startled. “Huh?”

“I'm sure you have a story,” Mari says. When Dia takes a while to respond, she continues. “Well, here's mine while you're thinking about it. I really wasn't interested in dance as a kid. My thing as a kid was horseback riding. I still love horses, but my American high school was in a city where there really wasn't space for that kind of thing. So I thought, well, new country, new language, more new things won't hurt. I signed up for a beginner’s dance class on a total whim, but I ended up really liking it, and I've been dancing ever since.”

“You're quite good for someone who's only been dancing for a few years. I thought you'd been dancing for a lot longer,” says Dia.

Wow, did Dia actually compliment her? Mari grins. “Well, thank you. I've put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into it since. I'm glad that it shows.”

Dia smiles back and then suddenly looks towards the counter. “I think our drinks came. I'll go pick it up. Wait here.”

/

“So, what's your story?” Mari asks once Dia returns with the drinks. “Don't think I've forgotten. Thanks, by the way.” She accepts her frappe, and ooh, it's just as sugary as she expected. It's pretty good though. She might order this again. After she tries the other items on the menu.

Dia sits down and stirs her cappuccino before speaking. “You said your thing as a kid was horses, right?”

“It’s still kind of my thing! I still ride whenever I have the time,” Mari corrects.

“Well, my thing as a kid was school idols,” Dia tells her.

“School idols?” Mari repeats. She's never heard of that term before. “What are school idols?”

Mari sees something flare in Dia’s eyes - anger? Frustration? Passion?

“School idols!” Dia exclaims. She slams her hand on the table rather loudly. “They sing and dance and capture the hearts of people and bring joy and happiness and inspire their fans!”

This is the first time Mari’s seeing this side of Dia, and she's not sure what to think of it yet. But there’s something beautiful in the way Dia’s eyes light up. So shiny.

“Fans like yourself?” Mari asks.

“M-me? A fan?” Dia stammers. “No, of course not. That was just when I was a kid. This is common knowledge!” She takes a long sip of her cappuccino.

Mari laughs to herself. “If you say so. You should show me your idol music collection some day.”

“You're really interested?” Dia looks at her hopefully before quickly turning away. “I mean, I don't have an idol music collection.”

“Aw, Dia,” Mari coaxes. “Not even a couple of songs?”

Dia hesitates. “I may have a couple of old CDs that I forgot to throw out in my apartment. Maybe. I don't know!” She's blushing. It's adorable.

“Then you should take me to your apartment one day,” Mari says, her voice a bit low. Oops, she did it again! The accidental flirting.

To her surprise, Dia tilts her head and says, “I may actually take you up on that offer.”

/

The way Dia sees it, the not-a-date was a total disaster. She was too awkward to say anything for the first five minutes, she burned her tongue from drinking her cappuccino too quickly, she accidentally exposed her deep love/obsession for school idols, and she lost track of time, causing her to be a minute late to practice. But the worse than all that: Mari turned out to be not as awful as Dia expected her to be. Her easygoing attitude, which usually annoys Dia, helped her relax and come out of her nervous shell. When not obnoxiously flirting, Mari was a good conversationalist. They talked about everything from dance to schoolwork to their childhoods. And Mari looked so irritatingly, effortlessly pretty in her white sundress.

Plus, Dia kind of promised Mari that she would bring her to her apartment one day. She didn’t specify when, and she only said _maybe_ , so she doesn’t have to. But she kind of wants to. Because this is a golden opportunity, isn’t it? For Dia’s plan? Yeah, her revenge plan…

Thinking about Mari is making her head spin. Right now she should just focus on dance. She stares at the blank notebook page in front of her. She still has half a song to choreograph, and she really wants to finish up a basic outline before she goes to bed. And she has to listen to all the songs that the other girls suggested that they perform to. It’s mostly pop and hip hop, with a couple ballads thrown in and a metal song recommendation from Mari. There she goes thinking about Mari again… No, she should be thinking about how she’d really like to decide on the rest of their performance songs by the end of this week, so they can focus on their actual dancing in the upcoming months. She wonders what the other girls think about the songs. The girls minus Mari, she means.

/

Dia can’t help but to watch Mari when she dances.

She’s always loved watching dance. It began with her religiously watching μ’s performances. μ’s piqued her curiosity, and she started to branch out and watch other school idol groups, then professional idol groups, and then eventually professional dancers. She watched ballet dancers and classical Japanese dancers and competitive tap dancers. Even though she never found an idol better than Eli Ayase, she’d been captivated.

The beauty of dance - when performed well, anyway - is that it looks effortless. Her favorite school idols always looked like they were having so much fun. Even in more dramatic performances, where the narrative focus was on pain and sorrow, everything looked so natural. That’s how Mari looked the first time Dia saw her dance: effortless, natural, beautiful.

Dance behind the scenes, of course, is less beautiful. Especially when it’s cardio day. Nobody looks effortless or natural while running laps up and down a flight of stairs. It’s nearly the end of practice, and everyone is sweaty and sore. Mari is no exception. Stray hairs are sticking out of her braid, and sweat rolls down her makeup-free face. The look on her face is one of concentration, rather than joy.

But Mari continues to practice, to give everything she has, to throw herself in wholeheartedly. Dia initially expected her to be a bit of a slacker who relied on her inborn talent, but Mari works damn hard (on top of being talented). She has a fondness for joking around, but she always knows when to get serious. The look of determination on her face and the resulting smile that blooms when she’s finally satisfied with herself is beautiful.

Not that any of that matter. Anyone is beautiful when they’re passionate, Dia tells herself. Anyone is beautiful when they dance. It has nothing to do with Mari herself.

/

Friday afternoon, Dia finally initiates Phase 2 of Operation: Get Revenge on Mari Ohara by Breaking Her Heart (Operation: Get Mari for short, or O:GM if she’s really in a hurry). She, of course, runs this plan through with Eli beforehand. For a situation like this, her poster isn’t enough. She takes her Eli figurines and plushies out of her closet and sets them on her dresser.

“I want to impress her in some way. You know, play to my strengths. Not dance, since we already see each other do that all the time. Not paperwork or studying, because that’s boring! Not bombarding her with μ’s trivia. Ah, Eli, I must have strengths besides just that, right?”

None of the Elis say anything. However, swimsuit Eli does wobble a bit. Dia readjusts the figurine and frowns. She needs to try harder. She opens her drawer and takes out a white scrunchie. After tying her hair into Eli’s signature ponytail, she tries again.

 _You have plenty of strengths!_ she imagines Eli telling her. _Don’t give up. Perhaps you’re overthinking this. You don’t need to arrange something elaborate. Why not invite Mari to do something you do regularly? If you do it regularly, you must be pretty good at it._

“Like what?” Dia asks.

 _Well, you hike every week for extra cardio training,_ Eli suggests.

“That’s perfect!” Dia exclaims. “I can show off my hiking skills, and It’ll just be us in the woods. It could be friendly, but it could be romantic if I played my cards right… Oh Eli, how do I flirt?”

Unfortunately, Eli seems to be out of advice.

/

Mari’s really starting to warm up to Dia, but she wishes Dia wasn’t such a hardass all the time. Sure, she understands that Dia’s discipline is necessary for a functioning dance crew. It’s part of the reason why Mari pushes herself so hard during practice. But really, right now?

Mari likes being outside. It was part of the appeal of horseback riding. So she likes hiking, and she was thrilled when Dia told her of a nearby hiking spot hidden on the outskirts the city. She was even more excited when Dia invited her to come hiking with her - ride provided. Dia’s been awfully nice to her ever since she apologized. Maybe Dia’s warming up to her too.

The hike started off pretty well. It was a lovely morning: the birds sang, the flowers bloomed, and the sunlight shone through the trees in a perfectly dappled pattern. But then they ran into a conflict. All Mari wanted to do was appreciate the outdoors - soak in the scenery, take too many pictures, maybe even hug a tree. All Dia wanted to do was get through the trail as quickly as possible and break her PR. She takes hiking _way_ too seriously.

Holding onto her sunhat, Mari chases after Dia, who’s already strode several yards ahead in the few seconds she took to take a picture of a flower. “Whoa, slow down. Don’t you want to appreciate the scenery?”

Dia doesn’t pause. “I told you, I want to break my PR today. Try and keep up, won’t you?”

“Come on, Dia!” Mari urges. “It’s such a nice day out! Look, there’s a stream over there!”

“I know. I’ve hiked this trail many times before,” Dia says. She _really_ isn’t going to crack.

Well, Mari isn’t going to let that ruin her fun. She runs ahead, crouches down on the bank and splashes her hands in the water. “Ah, it’s freezing! Dia, try it!”

Dia hardly gives her a glance as she marches across the bridge over the stream.

“It’s super cold! Refreshing, though. I bet I can keep my hand under this water longer than you can,” Mari says, undeterred.

To her surprise, Dia’s footsteps stop. Mari looks up to meet Dia’s narrowed eyes. “Is that a challenge?”

Aha. This is interesting. “You bet it’s a challenge. A challenge I’m going to win. I have an _amazing_ pain tolerance.” She winks.

“A Kurosawa never loses,” says Dia.

/

Dia doesn’t beat her PR, but she does beat Mari in “who can keep their hand in cold water the longest”, “who can spot the most birds in this area in 30 seconds”, and “who can get a bird to land on them first”, and “who can jump over the highest log”. Mari manages to win a couple of games too, like “who can climb the highest tree” and “who can tread the quietest in this part of the forest littered with branches.” They mutually decide that “who looks better in all these selfies” is a tie, and neither of them win “who can catch up to that squirrel.”

She _knows_ that Mari’s just messing with her competitive streak, but goddammit, she has to win. And also, Mari looks absolutely precious standing in the middle of the forest with a big grin and a purple bird perched on her shoulder. And when Mari tries to do a victory dance on her higher tree branch and promptly falls out of the tree, Dia laughs so hard that she almost falls out of the tree herself.

The forest is beautiful - no, not beautiful, it’s sparkling. She honestly can’t recall the last time she had this much fun when she went hiking.

She finishes up her flower crown with a bright purple bloom for the center with a flourish. She really thinks it complements the alternating white and pink flowers.

“I thought I was going to win this one for sure,” Mari says in surprise, finishing up her own white and yellow flower crown. “I didn’t take you to be the flower crown weaving type. Too frivolous, don’t you think?”

Dia almost snaps at her but realizes from Mari’s little half-smile that she’s just teasing. “I used to make these all the time with my younger sister,” she admits.

“Ruby, right? Aw, that’s so cute!” Mari coos.

Dia recalls telling Mari about her sister a few days ago on their not-a-date, but she’s surprised that Mari remembers her sister’s name. “Thanks.”

Mari inches closer, and for a second, Dia’s unsure of what she’s going to do and their faces are kind of getting closer and she panics like is she supposed to inch closer or scoot back or what? She feels something land on her head, and Mari pushes herself back, smiling.

“The crown looks good on you. I guess I’ll admit you won,” Mari says.

“T-thanks,” Dia says again, blushing.

/

Sadly, their hiking trip must come to an end. Mari wouldn’t mind being in the forest with Dia forever, but it’s been four hours, and she is really hungry. She suggests to Dia that they eat lunch together, but Dia shakes her head and says she needs to study. Mari considers telling her to loosen up a bit, but she figures Dia’s loosened up enough for one day. Baby steps. Besides, she admires Dia’s hard work ethic as well.

It’s fun to learn about all of Dia’s sides. When she’d first found a video of Sunglow and seen Dia dancing, she’d thought Dia was just another pretty bomber head. And then she’d seen Dia dance in person and been blown away by her radiance. Even with five other girls on the stage, something about Dia had stood out. It wasn’t just her skill, although she was definitely skilled. It wasn’t just her body, although she was definitely hot. She looked so free. Like an adventure. Like she - like _they_ \- could do anything.

And then Mari had actually flirted with her, and she’d been so adorably awkward. That threw her in for a bit of a loop. But what _really_ threw her in for a loop was when she’d auditioned for Sunglow and learned that Dia was a huge hardass. Ms. All Rules and No Smiles. It’d been such a contrast from the happy, unrestricted girl she was onstage. It made no sense. You can learn a lot about people from how they dance; how had Mari been so wrong?

And then Mari had actually started to get to know her, and it turned out that Dia wasn’t always a hardass. There was more to her than that. She could be sweet. She had a competitive streak. She was terrible at small talk. She loved school idols, but she was embarrassed of it. She had the kind of bright laugh that made Mari’s heart skip a beat.

When Mari catches herself thinking of Dia for the dozenth time while trying to do her Japanese classics homework, she wonders if something might be wrong with her. She thinks about Dia all the time, and thinking about Dia makes her smile. Huh. _Fuck_.

Okay, so maybe she has a bit of a crush. Not a big deal. It’s just something small that she can quickly nip in the bud. Not a big deal.

Her phone pings with a text, and Mari momentarily wonders if it’s Dia. But nope, the text is from the one and only Yoshiko Tsushima - also known as the fallen angel Yohane. _Thanks for letting me borrow your car. I’ll cook for you tonight_ , Yoshiko’s sent.

Oh boy. Mari needs to prepare herself for this.

/

Mari first met Yoshiko when she was sixteen at an indie music convention in Tokyo. Even though Mari went to school in America, she loved traveling, so she took advantage of her summer breaks to visit as many places as she could. The music convention was one of them. Mari was interested in a metal band, and Yoshiko was hoping to meet some shadowy singer known for her creepy, atmospheric tracks. It wasn’t really Mari’s cup of tea - a little too edgy scene kid for her tastes, but Yoshiko, as a self-proclaimed fallen angel, loved that kind of stuff.

Mari complimented Yoshiko on her Satanic outfit, complete with white face paint, plastic devil wings, and a gothic cape, while they were waiting in line for their badges. It turned out that, in addition to their respective interests, both of them were big fans of a lesbian ballad singer at the con, and they’d somehow become friends.

Mari was moderately popular at her American high school, and she had plenty of acquaintances and people she was friendly with, but she only had a couple of really close friends. Mari’s just not the biggest fan of tying herself down. It’s not like she has commitment issues or anything! She just likes to travel and try new things, and well, there’s so much about the world she doesn’t know. She’s still young, and she just wants to know what’s out there before she commits.

Regardless of all that, and despite only seeing Yoshiko a few times a year, Mari grew pretty fond of the younger girl. She was stoked to learn that Yoshiko happened to attend her new university in Japan. However, Yoshiko does have her flaws. A major one being that she’s a terrible cook.

“What is this stuff?” Yoshiko asks, poking around Mari’s kitchen. She takes out an uncooked sausage from the refrigerator.

“It’s chorizo,” Mari explains. “My dad sent it to me from Spain while he was on a business trip.” Mari remembers her own visit to Spain. She’d only been there for a few days on vacation, but she’d had a lot of fun visiting all the old castles and churches and beaches.

“Hm,” says Yoshiko. She sniffs the sausage before tossing it into the concoction that’s bubbling over Mari’s stove.

“Is it done yet?” Mari asks, waiting at her dining table. Yoshiko may be a terrible cook, but she enjoys cooking so Mari let’s her do it, and so far nothing has been poisonous.

“Almost. Be patient, my little demon,” says Yoshiko in a deep, ominous voice.

It’s been years, but Yoshiko still keeps up with the fallen angel thing. It’s actually pretty impressive. Mari can’t imagine cooking while wearing a gothic black dress with a feather sticking out of her hair.

Just as Mari predicted, Yoshiko’s food tastes the same way it always does: really spicy. And that’s it. That’s pretty much the only flavor. Mari likes spicy food when the spiciness is paired with something else; personally she’s fond of spicy and sweet. But Yoshiko’s soup/sauce/whatever has no other flavor apart from spicy. Luckily, Mari secretly ordered a pizza while Yoshiko was cooking. (If you can call that cooking.)

“I can’t believe you ordered pizza again! Do you not trust me?” Yoshiko says, her voice reverting to its natural high pitch.

Mari laughs. “Of course I trust you! I just ordered pizza for extra fun points, you know?”

Yoshiko grumbles but takes some of the pizza anyway. She drizzles her soup/sauce/whatever on top of the cheese. “How’s Tokyo suiting you?” she asks.

“It’s been fun! My classes have been better since I changed my major to theater. Can you believe I almost let my dad pressure me into majoring in finance? Ooh, also, I joined Sunglow. You should come to our competition.”

“Sunglow? The dance group? I’ve never seen a dance competition before.” Yoshiko clears her throat. “I mean, Yohane the fallen angel does not usually concern herself with such frivolous matters, but for the sake of her little demon, she may summon herself to the show.”

“Well, thanks. I feel flattered,” says Mari. “What about you? What’s been happening? Oh hey, I forgot to ask, how was your date?”

Yoshiko winces. “Not the best. I have terrible luck. It’s the curse of Yohane. I finally meet a girl who happens to be cute _and_ gay _and_ interested in me, and I ruined it! I am truly cursed.”

“You’re not cursed. You just had a bad date. And well, we all have bad dates. I’m sure you’ll find someone someday,” Mari says sympathetically.

Yoshiko shakes her head. “Let’s not talk about this. How’s _your_ love life? How are you enjoying the ladies of Japan?”

Mari shrugs. Dia momentarily flashes into her mind, but she shoves that thought away. “I don’t know. I haven’t really been hooking up.”

This takes Yoshiko by surprise. “You? Not hooking up? But - but you always have someone to talk about! Not even one person?”

Again, Mari thinks of Dia. And again, she shoves that thought away. “Aw, Yoshiko. Stop acting like I’m some kind of notorious womanizer.”

“It’s Yohane!”

“Well, I am quite irresistible,” Mari says with a wink. Yoshiko rolls her eyes, more interested in her pizza than in her. She and Yoshiko have always had a friendly, almost sisterly dynamic. Yoshiko’s like the quirky younger sister Mari always wanted, and Mari’s pretty sure that Yoshiko looks up to her as her older lesbian role model. At least, she hopes Yoshiko does.

See? Mari’s totally capable of having gay friends that she doesn’t want to hook up with. She has no problem with staying friends with Dia. At all.

/

For the next few weeks, Dia puts Operation: Get Mari on hiatus. She still sees Mari five times a week at dance practice, so naturally they’re getting to know each other, but Dia hasn’t enacted any purposeful plans. She doesn’t have any time!

The beginning of the dance season is always the busiest - well, aside from their actual competition dates. Aside from their dance practices, which are five days a week, she has songs to choose, choreography to create, applications to fill out, costumes to approve. Now that she’s the leader, she’s in charge of everything. It’s super fun and fulfilling - otherwise DIa wouldn’t bother with it - but it’s also stressful.

On top of that, she has her schoolwork to worry about. She’s a pre-med student, and pre-med is not easy. Never easy. Junior year is really starting to mess with her.

When she returns to her apartment, she stumbles upon a package from Ruby. Her younger sister’s left a note. _I tried to visit you, but you weren’t home! :( So I left you a little gift, heehee. :) I hope I can see you next time! :D Make sure you’re not working all the time. :O I love you! <3 Ganbaruby! _

Her little sister is such a blessing. Dia opens up the package to find matcha flavored candy, microwave rice, and a few bolts of fabric. _For the dance costumes ^_^_ , Ruby’s written. Her younger sister knows her so well. She feels a brief pang of nostalgia for the days when she and Ruby used to reenact μ’s performances. Ruby would make all their costumes, and she would prick her finger on the needle sometimes and start crying, and Dia had to comfort her by wrapping up her finger and playing “Happy maker.” That was so long ago. Now Ruby’s all grown up - studying fashion in college, moved out of the house…

She picks up her phone and sends Ruby a quick text thanking her for the package and giving her some hours during which she can visit. She would call her, but she’s so damn tired right now. After dance practice, she’d hit the library so she wouldn’t fall behind on her reading. She needs to get some sleep.

/

“Are you ever going to take me to your apartment and show me your idol music collection?” Mari asks Dia after practice one day. It’s been over two months since their cafe date, and Mari’s not sure why she brings the apartment thing up. It was just a whim, and Mari tends to go with her instincts.

Dia blinks in surprise. “I’d hoped you’d forgotten about that.” Her cheeks turn a little pink.

“Mari Ohara does not forget!” Mari says, sticking out her chest a bit.

“You forgot some of the choreography earlier today,” Dia points out.

“That was just a slip-up. Everyone has those,” Mari says dismissively.

“Sorry, I’m kind of busy this weekend. We still have a little bit of choreography that I haven’t finished up, and I need it to be finished by next Monday. I can’t fall behind schedule. But -” DIa hesitates before she admits, “I’m a little stuck.”

“I’ll help you!” Mari immediately exclaims, clapping her hands.

Dia frowns, and although it’s a pretty stoic frown, Mari thinks she can understand her internal struggle. Mari has trouble asking for help herself. She tends to be independent. She thinks it’s the result of living over a quarter of her life by herself in a foreign country.

“Sunglow is a group, after all. Let me help!” Mari presses.

Dia finally nods. “Okay. I guess you can come to my apartment, and we can work on the choreography together.”

Mari grins. “You won’t regret it, Dia!”

/

Dia regrets her decision already, but at least Operation: Get Mari is finally back in swing. The thing is, her apartment is a total mess. She tries to keep it all clean and organized, but life gets in the way sometimes!

On Saturday morning, she loses track of time while watching trashy romance movies, and she shrieks when she realizes she only has half an hour to get dressed and clean her apartment. She puts on a blouse and a denim skirt and brushes her hair and wastes five minutes looking for her lost hair clip and gets to cleaning. She makes her bed and picks up her clothes and shoves her care packages from Ruby and her parents into her closet. She’s in the middle of wiping down her kitchen table when the doorbell rings. Dia swears under her breath. Mari’s early.

She puts away her towel, smooths down her hair, and opens the door with a smile. “Hey.” Mari’s wearing a pale green t-shirt and a short purple skirt with gray thigh high socks, and the outfit shouldn’t work (all those colors!) but it does. She looks good.

“Hello!” Mari says brightly in English. She hands her a cup of pudding. “I brought snacks!”

Dia looks down at the pudding in surprise. “How did you know I liked pudding?”

Mari winks. “I told you I don’t forget things.”

/

Just as Mari predicted, Dia’s apartment is all clean and tidy. Mari wants to explore and look around, but Dia insists that they need to finish the choreography first. Her schedule and all. Mari just rolls with it and sits down next to Dia at her desk.

“This is the part of the song I can’t figure out,” Dia says. She opens her laptop, plays one of their performance pieces, and pauses after the bridge. “It’s the climax of the song. The most important part. The choreography here needs to be really good.”

Mari nods in agreement. “Can you play it again? The entire song. Not just the bridge.”

Dia agrees, and Mari closes her eyes as she feels the beat and listens to the vocals. It’s a fast-paced group song, but the bridge is a solo. The soloist starts off a little hushed, but then the song accelerates until the soloist lets go and really shines. No, she’s not letting go. It’s loud and emotional, but her voice is controlled and each note and word is clear. Mari’s impressed. It’s difficult to pull that off.

“I can see why you’re having trouble with that,” Mari says. “It has to be something like -” She suddenly stands up and throws her arms open. “Ka-blam!” She sits back down. “But it also has to be like -” She clasps her hands together, presses her clasped hands to one side of her face and blinks her eyes in a docile manner. “Ah, aaahh.”

Dia just looks at her like she’s crazy.

“What?” Mari says. “Moving around helps me think. How are you supposed to choreograph something while sitting down?”

Dia still looks at her like she’s crazy, but she must be taking Mari seriously because she says, “So I think what you’re trying to say is that the choreography needs to be bold and explosive, but there’s something shy behind it.”

“Not exactly shy. More like -” Mari searches for the right word. She claps her hands together. “Vulnerable. Like you’re inviting the audience to connect in this moment. The singer’s definitely not shy. Her lyrics are pretty suggestive. But this is a song about falling in love, you know? She’s got to be vulnerable.”

“And how do you suggest we show that?” Dia asks.

The tricky bit. “I think it’d be cool if it was a solo dance part, since it’s a solo in the song. The other girls freeze. It’s just the soloist and the audience. The beginning of the bridge could be kind of like -” She stands up and rushes to the other side of the room, in front of Dia’s bed. It’s kind of a cramped space, but she’ll have to make do. She turns around, facing the wall. “Start the music!”

The minute Dia turns on the song, Mari turns back around, her bright dance smile on her face. She takes a step back, and then she leaps forward, making eye contact with Dia. Her smile morphs into something less stage performance and more gentle. She moves her body fluidly to one side and then the other. She’s just fooling around really - experimenting, freestyling, doing what feels right. She stops at the end of the bridge. “That’s all I got. But you get the idea.”

“That needs refining,” Dia says. Jeez, she’s hard to impress. But Mari already knew that, she thinks, as she sits back down into your seat.

“I like your idea of a soloist,” Dia continues. “But I think at the climax of the bridge - when she starts to get louder - the other girls should all join in. It’s like you said. She’s inviting the audience to connect -”

“So everyone joins in! That’s genius!” Mari says. She leans forward and suddenly hugs Dia. The other girl stiffens, and Mari quickly pulls back. Dia’s face is red.

“Thanks,” Dia says awkwardly. “Let’s finish this song up.”

/

They make quick work of the song. Mari is surprisingly helpful. She has good instincts and a natural affinity for music. Dia wishes she was more like her. Her instincts are usually terrible, which is why she tends not to act upon them. Kanan will never let her live down the time she forced them to eat some berries that they found in the woods, insisting they were safe. They were not. They both broke out in terrible rashes. Dia’s was so bad that she still has a faded remaining scar on her upper thigh, although it’s not visible unless she’s not wearing pants. And Dia can’t forget the time she promised Kanan that her crush was, like, totally gay, and it turned out she was, like, totally straight, and Kanan didn’t find out until she got rejected. Yikes. Nope. Dia’s instincts are, like, totally shit.

“Ah! All done,” Mari says, bringing Dia out of her thoughts. Mari stretches her arms in a rather exaggerated manner. Dia definitely doesn’t peek at her exposed stomach.

“Not yet,” Dia says sternly. “We need to test this out with the other girls. Something that looks good in our heads might not look so good in real life. I’m not going to declare it complete until we’ve tested it out in its entirety.”

“Alright, alright,” Mari says with a handwave. “I mean done for _now_. There’s nothing left for us to do until we see the other girls at practice at Monday, right? So relax a little bit!”

“I guess,” Dia mumbles. Mari’s right. Maybe she should relax a little bit. _It’s not good for you to be so stressed all the time_ , a voice in her head that sounds a bit like Ruby tells her.

Dia nearly jumps at the sound of a little rumble. She turns to Mari to see the other girl with her hands on her stomach.

“I’m hungry!” Mari declares in English. “Why don’t we have that pudding I brought?”

Pudding: her weakness. Why is Mari so good at finding those? “I left it in the fridge. Wait here while I get it,” Dia says.

/

Dia should have never left Mari alone. The minute she leaves for the kitchen, Mari stands up and explores Dia’s apartment. She swings open a door and finds a bathroom. She uses Christmas themed hand soap, the kind that you probably get as a gift. That’s kind of interesting, but Mari has little interest in snooping around Dia’s bathroom. She leaves and swings open another door. It’s a bedroom - Dia’s bedroom. Aha! Jackpot. You can learn all sorts of things about someone from their bedroom.

/

When Dia returns with the pudding, Mari’s gone. Shit. She should have never left Mari alone. Where the hell is she?

“Mari? Mari!” Dia shouts. She notices her bedroom door is open. Oh no. She sets her pudding down on the couch and runs inside her room and finds Mari staring at her Eli Ayase poster. Shit!

“ _Eek!_ ” Dia shrieks. “It - uh - this isn’t what it looks like.” She sounds so unconvincing that not even she believes it.

Mari turns around. She has a coy little smile on her face. It makes Dia nervous.

“Dia Kurosawa, I would have never imagined this from you,” Mari says with uncharacteristic seriousness. And then her serious demeanor breaks. “Do you have a thing for blondes?”

“N-no!”

Mari flips her hair - her blonde hair. “I knew you had a thing for blondes.”

“I don’t!” Dia splutters. “I really don’t!”

“I think I totally have you figured out,” Mari says. She tilts her head. “You have this image of who you want to be. Like your idols. Like her.” She gestures at Eli. “So you’re -” Mari puts her arms at her side and stands up stiffly. “- Cool, calm, collected. But secretly, you!” She loses her good posture and suddenly points at Dia. “You! Dia Kurosawa! Are! A big! Dork!” With each emphasized phrase, she steps closer.

“ _Eek!_ ” Dia shrieks for the second time of that day. She can’t help it! She’s nervous, especially with Mari all up in her personal space. She steps back. “Me?” She laughs nervously. “A dork? That’s - that’s impossible.”

“It’s okay, babe. Lucky for you, I have a thing for dorks.” She winks, and Dia somehow turns even redder than she already was.

But Mari’s not done tormenting her. “Let’s see what else is in your room! Ooh, what’s in here?” She suddenly turns towards Dia’s closet. Oh no. That’s where she keeps her all her μ’s merchandise! Mari cannot open that closet. She cannot! Like a venomous snake, Dia strikes.

One second, Mari’s upright, and the next second, Mari’s been tackled onto Dia’s bed with Dia right on top of her. In her haste to hide her school idols, Dia hadn’t realized the… inappropriate position she would put them in. Her face is literally in Mari’s chest. On her bed. She quickly props herself up using her arms, and she’s about to scuttle away when she makes the mistake of looking at Mari’s eyes. They’re so… they’re so… Dia can’t think complete thoughts right now. She can only think of Mari’s legs entangled in her own and how Mari’s golden hair kind of looks like a halo spread out on her bedsheets and how the last thing she wants to do is move. Close. They’re so close.

Mari reaches out, and Dia feels her heart beat at a million kilometers a second and the warmth of Mari’s hand on her cheek. Then in her hair. Her touch is light - delicate - shy. No, not shy. What was the right word? Curious. _Vulnerable_. She’s not sure if that makes sense. She’s not sure if anything makes sense in this moment. Sense. She can sense Mari’s breath warm against her lips. Somehow she’s even closer than before. Did Mari lean in, or did she? Her eyes flutter closed of their own volition -

And then the doorbell rings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost titled this "Guilty Night, No Guilty Kiss" but I thought it'd be too much of a spoiler. I also considered splitting this into two chapters with the A side being "Operation: Strawberry Trapper" and the B side being "Guilty Night, No Guilty Kiss" but here, just have the whole thing. 
> 
> Tune in tomorrow for the (hopefully) stunning finale: Gay Party Train!


	3. Gay Party Train

Dia scrambles off of Mari so quickly it’s as if she’s been burned. Like Mari’s a hot pocket or something. Mari sighs and sits up. Is she really that repulsive? No, of course not. She’s a hot pocket, she reminds herself. That’s the opposite of repulsive.

She turns to leave and glances over at Dia’s closet. What’s in there that Dia wants to hide so badly? Mari _could_ open it, but half the fun is seeing Dia’s reaction. The way her cheeks turn red and the way she starts to shriek and stammer. Maybe she’ll even get tackled onto the bed again. That was a surprise.

She should have kissed her. She wanted to kiss her - so, so badly. But she’d hesitated. Which is unusual. She tends to go right for what she wants. Why hadn’t she kissed her?

The answer is simple, and it scares her. Because she really cares about what she has with Dia right now. She cares about their friendship. She cares about Dia.

Oh.

She’ll deal with these precarious feelings later. For now, she opens the closet with a grin on her face that might be a little malicious. Huehuehue. She’s found it. The _jackpot_.

She walks outside the bedroom, ready to tease Dia about her _discovery_ , and nearly does a double take when she sees Dia in a tight embrace with some red haired girl. She didn’t take Dia for the physically affectionate type. At all. Who the hell is this girl? Friend? Girlfriend? _Who is she?_

“Can’t - breathe! Help!” says the girl. She has a rather high pitched, childlike voice, although she can’t be any younger than eighteen.

“Sorry. It’s just so good to see you again!” Dia coos. She’s using this doting, cutesy voice that’s weirding Mari out. She didn’t take Dia for the baby talk type either.

Dia finally releases the other girl from her hug, and now that the redhead isn’t squished against Dia’s chest, Mari can get a decent look at her. The first thing she notices is the eyes. They’re the exact same shade of green as Dia’s. And that’s when it clicks. Of course! A wave of relief washes over her, and Mari feels silly for not thinking of it earlier.

“Hello, Ruby,” Mari says.

Ruby shrieks, and the sound is so similar to Dia’s that Mari almost laughs. “I - um - hi. I’m sorry to interrupt! I didn’t know my sister had guests over! Sh-she told me in her text that she was usually free at this time of the week. Who are you? How do you know who I am?”

“I’m Mari Ohara! Dia’s told me all about you. Don’t worry, all really good things,” Mari says with a wink.

“Really, sis?” Ruby looks up at her older sister with adoring eyes.

Dia nods enthusiastically. “Of course! You’re my dearest widdle baby sister.”

 _Dearest widdle baby sister?_ Good Lord. Mari would not want to be called that by her older sister as an eighteen year old, especially in front of somebody else, but Ruby just smiles big and continues to look at Dia adoringly. Between being weirded out by or amused by the situation, Mari goes for the latter. She is _so_ going to tease Dia about this later. Her theory about Dia secretly being a really big (really cute) dork confirmed.

“Hey Ruby, you grew up with Dia, right?” Mari asks, ready to have a lot of fun with this. Ruby nods, and Mari springs her trap. “So you must know tons of embarrassing stories about her! I’ve only known your sister for a few months, and I already have _so many_ embarrassing stories.”

“I’ve never done anything embarrassing!” Dia wails.

“Sis has never done anything embarrassing,” Ruby echoes, loyal to the core. This may be tougher than Mari thought.

“Really? Then what are your thoughts on this?” Mari whips out her secret weapon: the swimsuit Eli figurine that she swiped from the top shelf of Dia’s closet. Honestly, she didn’t think Dia was the type to keep figurines of half naked blondes in her closet, but she’s learning all sorts of things about Dia today.

Dia shrieks and turns bright red again, but Ruby seems rather unfazed. “Oh, sis! That’s the Eli figurine that you bought for 600 yen because the seller had no idea what it was worth! Such a bargain! She’s really pretty and really good quality!”

“Yeah, that was a good stroke of luck,” Dia says, her blush subsiding a bit. And then it returns in full force. “I mean, that’s - that’s not mine! Where did you find that?”

Mari is having _way_ too much fun. “Hm? Not yours? Well, then I guess you won’t mind if I take it,” she sing songs.

“Don’t you dare,” Dia immediately responds, her eyes suddenly turning dark. It’s a little scary.

“It’s joke!” Mari insists, flashing a peace sign. She hands the figurine back to Dia. “Don’t tell me you can’t take a joke.”

“I so can take a joke!” Dia shouts.

“Oh yeah? Prove it,” Mari says, knowing this will spark Dia’s competitive side. “Tell me a joke.”

Dia frowns, and just as Mari knew she would, she takes the bait. “Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?” Mari asks.

“Eli,” says Dia, currently too deep in competitive mode to get embarrassed over this.

“Eli who?” Mari plays along.

“Elisten to me. Stop being a jerk!”

It’s the worst pun that Mari has ever heard in her entire life, and she bursts into laughter because it’s one of those things that are so bad that it’s good. Near her, Ruby bursts into laughter as well.

“Sis, that’s such a good joke!” Ruby says between giggles. Is she laughing because she _genuinely_ finds it funny? Dia practically preens, looking incredibly proud of herself. This makes Mari laugh even harder.

“So, speaking of Eli,” Mari says, when she finally manages to stop laughing, “when are you going to show me your idol music collection? Like the group this hot blonde’s from. What is it, Myooze?”

“It’s μ’s!” Dia and Ruby shout at the same time, their eyes fiery.

If the Kurosawa siblings don’t end up murdering her during this encounter, Mari’s going to make fun of Dia for this for the next fifty years.

/

Dia should have never invited Mari to her place. It was disastrous - every single aspect of it. Except maybe the choreography they designed together. That part was alright. But once their work was over, everything went downhill! This is why you just have to focus on work…

As soon as Mari and Ruby are both out of her apartment, she flops down on the couch headfirst. The thing was, she had _plans_. She was supposed to finish up the choreography with Mari, and then over some pudding and coffee, Dia would introduce Mari to a couple of her favorite μ’s songs while explaining what she liked about each song. Dia would probably get a little carried away, but not to the point where she would irredeemably embarrass herself. They’d chat for a little longer, and then Mari would leave, end of story.

Of course, Mari Ohara has a tendency to tear all her plans to shambles. Ruby’s visit, while definitely welcome, was also a surprise, but it’s Mari that ruined her plans. Mari! With her nosiness and annoying jokes and figurine swiping tendencies! And her coy smiles and nice stomach and soft touches.

Out of everything that went wrong today, why is that what she’s focusing on the most? Their almost kiss. Unbidden, her mind recreates all the details. The warmth. The intensity. The fluttering in her heart.

Their almost kiss was definitely a mistake. Dia’s end goal is to seduce Mari, of course, but seduction implies _control_. Dia’s supposed to be in control. She didn’t feel like she was in control at all earlier. She felt like she was falling. It was exhilarating and heady and terrifying. Could she really be falling for _Mari_? Her best friend’s ex? _Get a grip_ , she tells herself, but her heart won’t stop its erratic beat.

The thing is: she _likes_ Mari. A lot. The more she gets to know her, the more she realizes that Mari isn’t the cackling, heartless villain that Dia expected (wanted) her to be. She likes Mari’s easygoing and confident nature. She likes how Mari isn’t ashamed of who she is, even the weird bits of who she is. She likes how Mari looks for adventure in everything, and even though she always ruins Dia’s plans, she makes it damn fun. She likes how hard Mari works, and she loves watching Mari dance.

Operation: Get Revenge on Mari Ohara by Breaking Her Heart is a failure. Dia hates admitting failure, but for the sake of her own sanity, she’s going to call this mission off.

/

The girls of Sunglow absolutely love the choreography that Mari designed with Dia over the weekend. There’s only one problem -

“Who should be the soloist?” Reine asks.

“I’ve already thought about that,” says Dia in what Mari’s mentally dubbed the smug leader voice. “I think Mari should do it.”

Mari prides herself on her poker face, but she can’t help letting out a surprised “Huh?” Mari knows she’s a good dancer, and she could definitely take on the solo if she puts in the work, but so could any of the other girls in Sunglow. They’re _all_ amazing dancers. She was expecting Dia to hold mini tryouts for the solo or something. But for Dia to nominate her just like that... Surely someone must dissent?

But nobody does. In fact, the other girls are just as enthusiastic about the idea.

“That’s perfect! I think Mari is best suited for this kind of role, out of all of us. I’ve always thought she has a very romantic aura about her,” says Minami.

Mutsuki nods. “Romantic… and sexy.” She pushes up her glasses.

Well, Mari isn’t going to deny that. She looks around the room one more time and sees nothing but supportive smiles. “Alright, alright, if you all want me to do it, how could I disappoint?” She grins. “I’ll do my best!”

/

The solo is tougher than she remembered, and tonight is just not her night. She’s stumbling left and right. It’s normal to have good nights and bad nights, but this is frustrating her to no end. And although she tries not to let it show in front of the other girls, she’s having a lot of trouble. _The other girls all chose you for this super important role_ , she reminds herself. _They’re all depending on you. You can’t disappoint them. You can’t ruin the entire set. You have to get this right._ Alright. Time to try again!

“Practice is over, you know.”

Mari freezes in the middle of her hip swing and slowly turns her head towards the doorway, where Dia Kurosawa stands.

“I thought you left already,” Mari says. “Like you said, practice is over.”

“I forgot something, so I came back,” Dia explains. She picks up a pink towel from the ground and puts it in her backpack. Mari expects her to leave after that, but she doesn’t. Instead, she asks, “It’s late. You should go home. You have plenty of time to practice until the competition.”

Mari waves her hand dismissively and tries to play it cool. “I’m not even tired! I just wanted to get this right and totally impress all the girls tomorrow! I’m tired of it looking sloppy.”

“So impatient,” Dia says, clicking her tongue. “It’s natural for dance to look sloppy in its early stages.”

“I’m always impatient. Besides, how am I supposed to convince the other girls that I’m a sexy dance goddess if I look sloppy?” Mari says, her voice a bit whiny. Dia’s gaze makes her feel a bit like a reprimanded child. Like she was caught rifling through the cookie jar in the middle of the night.

“I didn’t think you’d be the type to overwork yourself,” Dia says. Her reprimanding gaze softens. “As someone who’s been there, let me just tell you that there’s nothing wrong with taking a break. You’ll just burn yourself out.”

“Just this once!” she says stubbornly. “I’m usually not the type to overwork, I swear. It’s just that this is a pretty big deal.” Usually she _under_ works. In fact, she has a ton of reading to catch up on, but it’s harder for her to concentrate if she doesn’t care about the subject matter.

Dia tilts her head. “What did you once tell me? Don’t worry about it. You’ve got what it.” She nods for emphasis. “I know about these things.”

That gets a smile out of Mari. “Well, if it’s something that I originally said, it must be correct.” She raises her hands in surrender and heads for the door.

“Thanks, Dia,” she says softly before she leaves.

“No problem,” says Dia, and Mari wants to kiss her again. Which is ridiculous because Mari really likes the dynamic they have right now, and she doesn’t want to ruin it. If Mari kisses her, she’ll destroy everything that she and Dia have built up leading up to this moment, and she’ll never get to make fun of Dia for being a dork again. Besides, she’s not looking for a serious relationship right now. Nope. College is a time to have fun, not a time to get committed.

So Mari doesn’t kiss her. She just leaves.

/

Dia was worried that the incident and her subsequent revelation would make things awkward with Mari, but it doesn’t. They continue seeing each other five times a week at dance practices, and Mari continues relentlessly teasing her about everything. Honestly, if she brings up swimsuit Eli _one more time_ , Dia is going to throw Mari to the ground and kiss - Nope, not that, that’s the opposite of what she wants to do. Right?

So the only thing that changes is that Dia really wants to kiss Mari. This is a problem, but it’s not the type of problem that’s going to endanger Sunglow. Dia cares a lot about their little dance group, and she’s not going to let her feelings for Mari get in the way of their success. Beyond that, she and Mari are, weirdly enough, friends. Dia doesn’t make friends that often, so she cherishes them. She’s not going to let her feelings for Mari get in the way of their friendship either.

 _It’ll pass_ , she tells herself. The feelings will go away. She’ll get over Mari soon enough.

When over a month passes, and Dia’s still not over her feelings, she decides that she needs an intervention. She puts her hair up into a ponytail and opens up her closet to reach for her Eli figurines and plushies. Her merchandise is all on her top shelf, so she has to get on her tiptoes to bring out everything. While reaching for her Eli nendoroid, her hand bumps into something else, and she accidentally knocks a different figurine to the ground. She glances down and gasps because she thinks she’s just received her answer.

“Thank you Eli,” Dia whispers.

Staring up at her from the floor is Nozomi Tojo.

/

Mari’s of the belief that just as you can learn a lot about a person from the way they dance, you can learn a lot about a person from the music they listen to. Ever since Dia introduced her to μ’s, Mari’s been listening to their discography in her free time. Mari’s surprised by the diversity of genres that μ’s covers. Of course, some of their songs are the cliche bubblegum pop songs that Mari expected from school idols. But they also have powerful rock ballads and fast-paced tracks that make her want to dance, and songs with clear jazz and swing influences, and songs with 80s vibes. One song even reminds her of surf rock. And of course, Mari can’t forget about the metal. School idols can sing metal songs. Or at least metal-inspired songs. Who would’ve thought?

Mari ends up falling a little in love with the idol group μ’s. Something about them captures her heart: their earnestness, their dedication, their love of music and each other. It reminds her a lot of Dia, who is even bigger of a dork that she originally thought. The thought makes her heart beat fast. She was joking when she told Dia that she has a thing for dorks, but maybe she was secretly telling the truth. Maybe she does have a thing for dorks. Or maybe she just has a thing for Dia.

This is bad. Her little crush has bloomed into a big crush. It might even be love. Maybe. But what the fuck does she know about love? She’s only twenty years old. Which is why she didn’t want to get into a committed relationship so early. There’s plenty of fish in the sea - or, to say it more plainly, there’s a whole lot of pretty girls out there. Like, there’s nine pretty girls in μ’s, smiling at her from her computer screen right now.

Also, Nozomi is obviously the best girl of μ’s, not Eli. She decides to text Dia this just to mess with her. And also maybe because she just wants to text Dia.

To her surprise, Dia doesn’t respond with a defensive rant about her deep love for Eli Ayase. Instead, she sends her a link to a song.

The song is called “Garasu no Hanazono,” and Mari clicks on it curiously. She hasn’t listened to all of the μ’s songs yet (there’s a lot!), and this happens to be one of the songs that she hasn’t heard yet.

Holy shit.

 _wow! that’s gay_ , Mari texts back. When Dia doesn’t respond - even though her phone indicates that she’s read it - Mari decides to add something else. _i ship eli with that other girl though. the one with the dark blue hair._

Dia responds to this one immediately. Mari can’t help but to smile as she reads the text. _What?! You’re an EliUmi shipper? I’m never talking to you again_.

 _it’s joke!_ Mari texts back. Dia doesn’t answer this text either, but maybe Mari deserved that. Enough messing with Dia for one day. She has reading to catch up on before finals.

/

Ah, finals. How Mari loves them. To make matters worse, there’s a dance competition the weekend right after finals. The timing is garbage. Who scheduled that? Who thought it was a good idea?

“It’s not a big one, so focus on your finals, and don’t worry too much,” Dia tells them. “All the big competitions are at the end of the summer.”

 _Don’t worry_. That’s pretty rich, coming from Dia. Even though Dia tries her best to play it cool, Mari can tell that she’s nervous. When she’s not dancing or giving pointers to the other girls, she fidgets with her hands and stares into space and drinks too much water. All the signs of a stressed out hardass.

That’s why Mari checks back into the dance studio Thursday night, the night of their last practice before finals. (Dia wanted to give the other girls time to study, so she cancelled their usual Friday practice.) Sure enough, Dia’s still in the studio, going through the routine and scrutinizing her reflection in the mirror.

“I knew you were overworking yourself,” Mari says, leaning against the door.

Dia whips around, beautiful even with her hair slipping out of her bun and her face covered with sweat. Mari tries not to focus on the way her chest heaves up and down. Dia turns off the music, and for a moment, it’s just them, alone in the studio. Mari. Dia. The tension in the silent air. Can Dia feel it too?

“I’m not overworking myself,” Dia says weakly.

Mari doesn’t believe that for a second. She walks over and hands Dia a towel. She attempts to wipe down Dia’s face herself, but Dia snatches the towel out of Mari’s hand and turns away.

“Someone once told me there’s nothing wrong with taking a break. Otherwise you’ll burn yourself out,” Mari says.

Dia doesn’t respond, but she starts wiping her face. “I guess you’re right,” she mumbles.

“Come on,” says Mari gently, pulling at Dia’s free hand. “I’ll buy you some ice cream.”

/

She should say no. Dia should say no, but Mari’s hand in hers (and Mari in general) is kind of making her lose her good sense of judgment. So she lets Mari take her to a cafe and buy her ice cream.

It’s the cafe where they had their first not-a-date, and she wonders if Mari is deliberately fucking with her. First Mari rejected her love confession. (EliUmi, _really?_ ) Now this?  

Dia orders matcha flavored ice cream, and Mari goes for chocolate. They sit in the same booth as they did on their first not-a-date, and, as they eat their ice cream, Dia tries not to stare at Mari’s lips too much. Or her tongue. Her mouth in general.

Honestly, what the _fuck_ did she do to piss off the universe like this? She’s a good person. She doesn't cheat on tests. She donates to charities. She does nice things for her friends, and she takes damn good care of her younger sister…

“You’re an amazing dancer,” Mari says, interrupting Dia’s inner monologue. “Just thought you should know, in case you’re worrying about the competition too much.”

“I am _not_ worrying about the competition too much,” Dia says. It’s true. Mari might think that she’s overworking herself, but Dia got much better with that after she nearly had a mental breakdown during the senior year of high school from overwhelming herself with academic work, dance, and student council duties. Not to mention she saw what happened when Honoka Kousaka from μ’s overworked herself, and Dia learned from it.

Dance is how she works through her emotions. It’s always been how she works through her emotions. Or maybe dance is just how she distracts herself. But whatever, distracting and distancing yourself is totally a valid and healthy method of working through your emotions, right? But it was difficult to do that when she had to dance with Mari, the source of her emotions, right there. So after Mari’s rejection, she’d wanted - no, needed - to dance by herself.

“It’s okay to admit you’re stressed,” Mari says.

 _I wasn’t dancing because I was stressed; I was dancing because I love you!_ Dia almost screams. Thankfully, she restrains herself. “Maybe I was a little stressed,” Dia says instead. Her right eye twitches.

“I love watching you dance,” Mari says, and Dia’s heart skips a beat at that statement even though it shouldn’t. “I think you hold yourself back a lot. But when you dance, you just let everything go.”

“Yeah,” Dia mumbles. She holds herself back, huh. Mari has no idea. She stuffs her mouth with ice cream so that she won’t have to say anything else. This is a mistake. “Eek, brain freeze!”

Mari laughs. “You’re such a dork.”

/

Mari wants to kiss her.

She almost does. She leans forward and pulls Dia’s lips to hers. She wonders what Dia would taste like. Matcha, probably. And something else. She wants to find out what Dia tastes like. She wants to learn everything about Dia. She wants to say _I love you_.

Love. Where had that come from? She’s wanted to kiss a lot of girls before. That’s not a big deal. She’s very familiar with lust. But this - this is different. She wants to hold Dia’s hand and be there for her every time she stresses out and buy her extravagant gifts and maybe even grow old with her.

 _Stop running away from this_ , she tells herself. All this time she’s been running - searching - so afraid to commit. What is she running from? What is she searching for? Why is she so afraid?

 _Face it, Mari Ohara. You’re in love_. The realization should be shocking - but it isn’t. Because she’s known for a long time, hasn’t she? Her heart’s beating fast, and her palms are sweating, but Dia’s made her feel like this for a while, hasn’t she? Dia - harsh and strict and kind and caring, hyper competent and hyper dorky, hardworking and passionate and awkward and sometimes a little bit scary, _beautiful_ Dia Kurosawa. The feelings suddenly overwhelm her, and Mari knows.

There’s a lot of fish in the sea. There’s a lot of pretty girls out there. There’s a lot of things in the world that Mari has never encountered, and there’s a damn lot of things that Mari doesn’t know. But she knows that she wants Dia in her life. She wants to run with, to search _with_ Dia. She wants to stop being afraid.

Mari should tell her. She needs to tell her! The words bubble up in her throat -

Dia suddenly slams her hand on the table. “Listen, I just want to say that I really appreciate you, and I like having you in my life. You’re a good friend, and no matter what happens between us, I don’t want that to change.”

And just like that, the words stop. In fact, everything seems to stop. Her heart stops, the world dulls, she can’t hear anything but a loud rushing in her ears.   

“Oh yeah, me too!” Mari manages to say with false cheerfulness.

/

Dia sighs in relief. Mari still wants to be friends. That’s a good thing, right? She hasn’t completely ruined their relationship with her rejected confession. They can move past this, and everything’s going to return to normal.

So why does she feel like shit?

/

“You look like shit.”

Dia rolls around in her bed to see the familiar purple eyes of Kanan Matsuura staring back down at her. She groans and rolls back to her original position with her face smooshed down into her pillow. “Go away!” she says, except the pillow blocks her voice, so it just sounds like a muffled yell.

“Dia, I know you get pretty bad at existing during finals week, but this is bad, even for you. What happened?”

Another muffled yell.

“Dia, if you don’t get out of that bed and tell me what’s going on, I’m going to throw away all your Eli Ayase merchandise.”

Dia immediately sits up at that. “How could you even say such a thing? You’re not playing fair!” she cries. “How did you get into my apartment anyway?”

“You told me the door code, remember?” Kanan says.

“The door code is only for emergencies! You should ring the doorbell before you just barge in. Like Ruby. Ruby knows my door code, but she always rings the doorbell.”

Kanan rolls her eyes. “Thanks for the warm welcome, Dia. Here I was, trying to cheer you up with a surprise visit. Are you going to tell me what happened or not?”

/

Dia ends up telling Kanan everything: her initial operation, her failure to complete the operation, and her failure of a confession after she realized she’d fallen in love. Kanan listens to everything calmly and attentively, punctuating Dia’s story with nods and _mmhmms_ and asking the occasional question for clarification. And when Dia finally finishes up her sorry tale, Kanan only has one thing to say.

“Dia, you do realize that sending someone “Garasu no Hanazono” is not an actual love confession, right?”

“What? Of course it is!” Such a thought had never even crossed her mind. In Dia’s mind, she had been crystal clear about her intentions. By sending Mari “Garasu no Hanazono,” she was was _obviously_ asking the other girl to be the Nozomi to her Eli. But Mari hadn’t felt the same way. And when Mari had told her that she shipped EliUmi, Dia thought Mari was trying to let her down gently but firmly. Mari was not interested in her.

“Not everyone thinks in the same ridiculous, harebrained way you do. Remember that time you told me Yuki was gay, and I had to learn that she was actually straight by being rejected by her?”

Dia turns beet red. “You promised me you were never going to bring that up again!” she wails. “I made a mistake, okay?”

“Well, the point is,” Kanan continues, “you’re acting like your romantic prospects are doomed, and Mari already rejected you, but how the hell could she have rejected you if you never even properly confessed? The poor girl probably has no idea how you feel!”

“You really think so?” Could Dia have misinterpreted the entire situation?

“I _know_ so, Dia. Jeez, for such a smart person, you’re such an idiot sometimes. You should listen to me more often,” Kanan says.

Dia bites her lip. Maybe Kanan’s right. “But… are you sure you’re okay with me potentially dating your ex-girlfriend?”

“I told you from the beginning that I was fine with it,” Kanan reassures her.

“But… what if I confess, and then she actually rejects me? I don’t think I could handle a rejection twice!” Dia shouts. She resists the urge to fall face down into her pillows again.

“You’re just making excuses. You won’t know until you try, won’t you? Think of it as a challenge.”

Dia crosses her arms. “You aren’t playing fair again. You know I can’t back down from a challenge.”

Kanan grins. “Well then, what the hell are you waiting for?”

Dia smiles, her mind whirling with potential plans. Things to wear, to say, to do. The many ways she could go about approaching this.

“Thanks for visiting, Kanan,” she says softly. “You’re right. You’re right about everything. Well, almost everything. “Garasu no Hanazono” _is_ an appropriate love confession. I’m going to prove it.”

/

Finals week is officially kicking Mari’s ass.

It’s not just about the finals, which are difficult enough. She feels overwhelmed with everything that’s happening. Like the upcoming dance competition. Like the upcoming summer break. Like Dia.

There she goes, thinking about Dia again. She lasted, like what, five whole minutes this time? Her hand clenches around her pen. She’s supposed to be taking notes, but she can’t concentrate. She keeps thinking about Dia. _You’re a good friend, and no matter what happens between us, I don’t want that to change_.

Friends. Right. _Oh yeah, me too!_ She taps her pen against the table rapidly. God, she wishes she could just move on. It’s not like she’s entitled to more from Dia. She knows that, and she’s not going to dare demand more from Dia. It’s just going to hurt for a while. It’s going to hurt a lot for a long while. It’s good thing that they’re not seeing each other until next week.

She jolts in surprise when the doorbell rings. Who could be visiting her at this hour? Yoshiko always texts ahead of time, her parents always call ahead of time, and Mari doesn’t remember ordering pizza. Maybe it’s one of those weird churches or a dedicated salesperson.

Mari definitely doesn’t expect to see Dia Kurosawa standing in the doorway. In fact, she’d be less surprised if she saw an alien at the door. Her mouth actually drops open. Oh my God. Why is Dia here? Does Mari look okay? She braided her hair and changed out of her pajamas this morning out of sheer habit, but she doesn’t feel like a particularly hot pocket right now.   

Dia is somehow more beautiful than Mari remembers, and the intensity in her green eyes makes Mari forget her confusion and shock and heartbreak and only remember her _longing_.

But that moment quickly breaks when a song starts playing from Dia’s phone. Huh? Does Dia have a call or something? Why isn’t Dia picking up her phone? And why does this song sound so familiar?

The powerful beat and sultry atmosphere are definitely familiar, but Mari doesn’t recognize the song until Dia starts singing.

“ _Yume no meiro, yuri no meiro._ ”

Holy sweet mother of Jesus. Dia has the voice of an angel, and this temporarily distracts Mari from the utter bizarreness of the situation. She is just really damn confused. After five days of zero contact since her friend declaration, Dia randomly shows up at her doorstep and starts singing? Mari’s speechless. She has no idea what to think, let alone what to say.

“ _Akogare o kataru me ga / Tooku o sagashiteru toki -_ ”

“Um, Dia?” Mari asks, finally able to find her voice. “What are you doing here?”

Dia awkwardly breaks off in the middle of her line and flushes red, and oh, Mari missed that blush. She pauses the song on her phone and exclaims, “I’m serenading you!”

“Serenading me?” Mari asks. Her heart starts beating a little faster, and she dares to hope. She takes a deep breath. “But why?”

“Why? What do you mean _why_? Isn’t it obvious? It’s - it’s a love confession, okay? Because I love you,” Dia manages to keep eye contact as she speaks, but at the last word, she turns away, her blush deepening.

A well of emotions surge throughout Mari - confusion, shock, relief, amusement. But only one overwhelms her and threatens to burst. She laughs, her heart full of love, and steps forward. “I think you need to work on your love confessions, Dia. You do realize that randomly showing up at someone’s door and singing “Garasu no Hanazono” isn’t actually a love confession, right?”  

Dia opens her mouth to say something - probably protest - but whatever she’s about to say gets cut off because at that moment, Mari does what she’s wanted to for so long and kisses her.

Dia lets out a little surprised yelp when their lips crash together, but she doesn’t pull away and kisses her back. Mari means to be careful, to be gentle, but Dia slides her hand into Mari’s hair and presses closer. Dia’s lips are soft against her own, and her mouth is warm and inviting and a little bit frantic, and it surprises her: the intensity with which Dia kisses her. Dia isn’t holding back. Neither should she.

Mari wraps her arm around Dia’s waist, somehow bringing them even closer. She slips her tongue into Dia’s mouth, eliciting a moan, and she doesn’t suppress her shivers as Dia runs her hand up and down her spine. Her back has always been sensitive, but really, every part of her is so damn sensitive right now. She presses her hand into Dia’s hip more insistently. Her mouth is on fire, she’s burning up, and she still wants more, more, more -

Dia breaks away, gasping for air. Her chest heaves up and down, and Mari admires it for a second before looking up so she can admire Dia’s face. Her mussed hair, her red cheeks, her kiss-swollen lips. Beautiful.

“That was nice. I mean, um, more than nice!” Dia says. “But, um, I had to ask, confirm, I guess, does this mean you accept my confession?” She’s rambling. It’s adorable.

Mari puts her hand under her chin as if contemplating. And then she laughs and puts Dia out of her misery. “Duh, you dork! I’d be a fool to not to. You’re -” She tries to think of the right word to describe her, but she can’t find the perfect one to encompass all her overflowing emotions and everything Dia is, so she settles for saying, “- the shiniest diamond of all!”

Dia sighs in relief but then frowns and shakes her head. “No matter how many times I’ve heard that pun throughout my life, it never gets better. That’s the worst pun I’ve ever heard, Mari. Way to ruin the moment.”

Mari raises her eyebrow. “Really? This is coming from someone who once told me a joke where the punchline was _Elisten to me_?”

“I thought that was pretty clever!” Dia says defensively.

“You dork,” Mari says fondly. “Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?” Dia responds.

“Eli.”

“Eli who?”

“Elisten to me. I love you too.”

Dia smiles, and Mari grins, and the two of them lean in to kiss again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tl;dr Kanan is always right. 
> 
> Here we are at the end, and thanks to everyone who left kudos, left a comment, or even just read this fic!! I really appreciate it.


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